Notebook: Jackets QB enjoys big night, halftime honor, EG ailing

Bessemer City quarterback Tyler Bess was one of the smallest players on the field Friday night but made some of the biggest plays.

The 5-foot-5, 135-pound junior rushed for a season-high 127 yards on 14 carries and scored three touchdowns in the Yellow Jackets’ 44-6 home win over Highland Tech.

“The good thing about him: he’s hard to see in there,” Bessemer City coach Larry Boone said. “And they had him wrapped up a bunch of times and just couldn’t get a hold of him.”

Bess scored Bessemer City’s first three touchdowns on runs of 5, 6 and 2 yards as the Yellow Jackets (2-3) took control early. Bess, in his first varsity season, directed the double-wing offense to the tune of a season-high 422 yards. Fullback Cedric Mackey added 118 yards and a pair of TDs on 16 carries.

“He’s getting better with the option,” Boone said of Bess. “If you take one thing out, another part of it has to step up.”

Bessemer City is off next week before visiting Forestview on Oct. 4. “I’m just pleased with the way they played,” Boone said. “These kids stepped up this week.”

Halftime honor: College football, basketball, baseball and other sports recruiters certainly scour Gaston County high schools annually for top talent.

But for the Class of 2014, the most highly recruited athlete may be Cherryville High track and field star Trent Friday.

Friday and former Cherryville High star Calvin Padgett were honored by the school at halftime of Friday’s 19-14 Ironmen victory over visiting East Gaston.

A winner of four state titles over the past two years, Friday has already officially visited North Carolina A&T and has scheduled visits to TCU, Miami (Fla.) and Florida State and may also visit Kentucky and East Carolina, Fox said.

Padgett, a 1987 Cherryville High graduate, was honored for his recent accomplishments in the World Masters Games in Torino, Italy. There, Padgett was a gold-medal winner as the anchor runner of the 400-meter relay team in addition to finishing fifth in the 400-meter dash and 11th in the 100-meter dash.

In high school, Padgett was all-state in the 100- and 200-meter dashes in 1987 before shining at Lenoir-Rhyne. — Richard Walker

Getting healthy: Cherryville spent the offseason teaching the veer offense to a quarterback (Grant Henderson) who hadn’t played football for two seasons.

After injuries wracked the team — 19 varsity and junior varsity players were out for last week’s North Gaston games — Ironmen coach Keith Fox had to switch to a spread offense. But after beating visiting East Gaston 19-14 on Friday, Fox is hopeful his team can heal up in time to fulfill the high expectations the team received when it was preseason Southern Piedmont 1A favorite in a vote of rival coaches.

“If you watch our films in the first game, the second game and the third game, we’re doing so many things differently — because we’ve had to,” Fox said. “Now that we’re getting healthy, hopefully we can develop some consistency.” — R.W.

Moore’s receiving yardage total marked a career-high, topping his 143 receiving yards against Kings Mountain last year. Moore is approaching a career milestone in receiving as Friday’s total gave him 924 yards for his four-year career. — P.G.

Warriors’ juggling act: When the 2013 season began, East Gaston coach Sean Joyce wanted to keep his junior varsity team comprising mostly freshmen and sophomores together in hopes they would be successful.

A 2-1 record that includes victories over Lincolnton and Cherryville and only a 14-8 loss to East Lincoln would seem to vindicate Joyce’s optimism for his feeder program.

But after losing several players to injury on Friday night, including his third-team and fourth-team quarterbacks, Joyce will be challenged to keep his JV roster at 34 players.

Already on Friday, with junior quarterbacks Austin Woods (ankle) and Tyler Price (shoulder) out of action, he promoted sophomore Alex Adams to start and had junior halfback-linebacker George Miller and freshman Josh Benfield on standby as backups.

Adams got hurt in the first half and Miller in the second half and Benfield ended up playing in three quarters.

“Never in my 15 years of coaching have I seen anything like this,” Joyce said of the spate of injuries at the same position. “And we’ve had other injuries. At the end of the game tonight, we had 18 healthy players.”

With the Big South 2A/3A schedule approaching — East Gaston visits preseason favorite South Point on Friday — Joyce is confident his team will keep fighting on.

“It’s heart-breaking — for them,” Joyce said. “They’ve worked so hard and battled and stuck with what we as a coaching staff have tried to do. So it’s frustrating — very frustrating. But it says a lot about their character because they’re going to keep fighting and battling.” — R.W.